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So E3 has pretty much come and gone this year, and I'm curious about anyone's reactions to what was shown.

Here are some of my thoughts.

 

Nintendo: The WiiFit is interesting, but combined with the WiiBlaster and the WiiWheel (funniest name for something ever?) it seems like you'll have to have a crate of peripherals stored in your living room to play with the Wii.

Sony: I was really impressed with that MC Escher-esque puzzle game they showed off. I definitely might consider getting a PSP to play it. It was nice to see Kill Zone in action and the graphics do look pretty darn good, but I think those journalists saying it matches the level of the pre-rendered trailer from two years ago are insane.

Microsoft: I think it may have been a mistake from a 'hype' point of view for them not to show games coming out beyond the end of this year, the fact is the three games I most want to play this holiday season: Halo 3, Bio Shock and Mass Effect all happen to be coming out on the 360.

 

Overall: Overall I was most impressed by Bio Shock, I cannot wait to play this game. The ability to accomplish goals in such a variety of ways just sounds like a blast. Plus the story and atmosphere look so refreshingly original.

 

I've got more to say but I figure I'd just get the topic started and if people are intersted we can discuss from there.

 

You may discount whatever I have to say regarding video games, as I dont play them as fervently as I once did.

But speaking from the perspective of someone who was once quite obsessed, I think that the peripherals for Wii are a good idea. Not everyone will get all of the differing controllers. The reason being is that not everyone wants to play all of the games.

Video gamers are quite a bit more picky than they once were years ago. If you had the robotron, you desired numerous games to use it with. But sadly we all know where that one led...

I cannot speak for everyone on the types of games they play, as certainly there are those insane gamers who want everything.

But as for myself, I like to play in a more social environment (unless I get a weeks vacation and hole myself in my bedroom playing KotOR II) and like party games. Because I have found a niche for my gaming, I imagine that Nintendo has recognized this in others as well. Many people solely play 1st person shooters, or driving games, or what have you.

I think nintendo is getting back alot what they lost when they basically gave away a huge section of their consumer base to sega those many years ago. They may be on to something.

Of course, many of these peripherals wont be long lasting for many things, as popularity dictates whats used. But tech is cheap, so R&D isnt such a huge pain as it once was.

I watched the E3 Expo on G4 and honestly I have mixed feelings...

The Nintendo Press conference put me to sleep! I do own a Wii, but I felt underwhelmed by their show. To me, Nintendo just doesn't seem too interested with the Hardcore gamer, but rather the casual gamer or older individuals who might not normally play games. I saw on Kotaku.com, that the Wii gun-thing wasn't as cool as it seemed...and IMHO I am not a fan of the peripherals...

Microsoft was another snoozer...We've seen Halo 3, Bioshock and most of the other games, so to me there was nothing "new" nothing that jumped out at me and made me say "Wow, I gotta get that!" Again I own a 360 and the games I mentioned I am interested in, but I was hoping to see something new, something cool...sort of what GoW did last year! When I saw Gears in action, I was like, "honey I am getting a 360!"

Sony however, made me sit up and take notice. I am going to be buying a PS3 within the next week or so. Heavenly Sword, Lair and Killzone 2 looked great! I think they had the most to show off and deservedly so...Normally I have been a huge Sony fanboy, ever since I saw Final Fantasy 7 so many years ago and the week of college classes I skipped just to play the game! However I went with the 360 over the PS3 for 2 reasons, Price and Gears of War...Now, I have the potential to own all three systems and I am excited about the three systems, I just wish I saw more of certain games such as,

Lair, not much new...I saw another new trailer, but that was about it. IGN Uk had a pre-E3 preview of the game which seemed cool...

Army of Two, I have seen alot of stuff about the game in the past, but not much this year or at least nothing from the E3 coverage from G4TV...

However a game that has me jonesing really bad is Call of Duty 4: Modern warfare! Awesome, it looks great! and I am totally happy with the fact that the company is leaving WW2 behind!

Just a few of my thoughts, for what it's worth.

Thanks,
Chappy P!

I hated E3 this year.  Just despised it.

I know feel that I NEED to get both a 360 AND a PS3!

*shakes fist at E3*  CURSE YOU, E3!

*sob*


Okay.  Done with that.

I own a Wii and was excited to see what was coming out for it.  Mario Galaxy looks cool and I LMAO watching Rayman: Rabid Rabbids 2 footage.  And the RE shooter looks cool.

Microsoft's stuff look great.  Condemend 2 looks just down right creepy and there were a few other things that caught my eye.

Sony.  Good to see you guys back.  Okay.  I saw KillZone 2  around 2 years ago and was impressed.  Now that I see the actual game, I thought it looked better than the prerendered that was show 2 years ago.  But, that is just me.  Drakes Fortune really impressed me and that is one of the one's I'm looking forward to.

Oh, and MGS4.  OMG!  If that is in game footage, I'm gonna poop myself.

But, what I was impressed with was all of the cross platform games.  RE5 (looks fricken' sweet), Call of Duty 4 (modern warfare), Star Wars: Force Unleashed (drool) and, of course, Assassins Creed!  Now that game impressed, big time.  I really want to see more and figure out what that game is all about.  The whole digital outline and scrambles are just intriguing to me.

But, as I said, I hated E3.

While I fully respect that Nintendo is tapping into the casual gaming/party gaming market they are most certainly leaving the 'hardcore' gamer out to dry. It wasn't too long ago (like 2 years ago) where a Nintendo system with only MarioKart, Metroid and other Nintendo favorites was lambasted for not having any 'hardcore' games in their lineup.

Now that Nintendo has gone even further off towards the casual gamer with the Wii's mini-game based games, suddenly they are touting Mario, Metroid and Super Smash Bros. as plenty of games for the 'hardcore'???

To me, it seems clear that Nintendo has abandoned the hardcore gamer for the mainstream gamer, which is strange because the 'hardcore' market has been pretty lucrative up to this point.

What I'm really afraid of is that the fact that the Wii is selling so well is going to mean that resources of game making companies might start shifting more towards the 'mainstream' simple games in the near future and even Microsoft and Sony have already started scrambling around to get these types of games to marked on their systems.

The thing is, I know a lot of people who own Wiis, and they don't really buy too many games, at least not like your typical 'hardcore' gamers do. For the most part I still see them playing Zelda and Wii Sports (maybe Rayman).

So while the Wii may be selling alot of hardware, from what I've read, it isn't selling that many games. So at what point will all of these casual games suddenly put out by the game companies reach the market and start sitting on the shelves waiting to be sold? At what point will everyone figure out that while Grandma might pick up and play Wii Sports every couple of weeks she's not going to go out and purchase new games?


I just hope Microsoft/Sony calms down and lets the Wii take the hardware lead this generation without panicking. Nintendo can have it's swathe of casual gamers while Sony and Microsoft make money off the 'hardcore' that has made gaming so huge up to this point and time.

As all those PS2 users finally get tired of their machines and the prices on the new systems drop I think people will gladly end up owning the Wii for party games and one of the other two for their more serious gaming.



@ BrothersKeeper: the MGS4 trailer was in-game engine, but the entire thing is just a cinematic trailer. I never really understand why people get so worked up by cinematics. It's not like you play the cinematics of a game, they just play like a movie.

Sure the MGS4 trailer looked great and was entertaining, but it doesn't show you any gameplay, which is what makes a game fun or not.

Of course, MGS is always fun, so I don't think we need to worry too much about that, I just never understand the cinematic lust that many people express.

Two words:  Eye Candy.

Part of me hopes that it will look that good, but we all know that never happens.  I just love the MGS series.  Yes even the MGS2 with the Radien switcher-oo.  I played that game to death and still have it.

If you look at this article from Gamespot, it talks about some of the stuff that Kojima shows off in the demo:
www.gamespot.com/ps3/adventure/metalgearsolid4/news.html

Still makes me excited.  But, as I always tell people, I'm a "glass-half-full" type of a person.  Can't help it.

Well, lessee:

Nintendo: their conference was pretty bland, from a gamer's perspective (lots of pie charts?). I like my Wii, though, and am looking forward to shooting zombies with it. Mario Kart is always great. Wii fit...meh, I've got a dedicated DDR room in my house (spare PS2). DS Sonic RPG from Bioware? Hmm.

Sony: still not buying a PS3. Bait-and-switch "price drops" don't inspire confidence. My PS2s still see plenty of action, and still have new game support.

Microsoft: glad they fessed up to the hardware issues (finally). Learned today that Halo 3 will NOT have co-op play over Live, which was a required feature for me; so, I won't be buying one of those anytime soon, either.

In my house, Nintendo is winning this generation just by giving me something NEW to play. Otherwise, I'm not motivated by the "pretty graphics, same gameplay" that MS/Sony are trying to sell me - there are far more PS2 games that might be worth playing than I will get to in this life, and there hasn't been anything "must have" to compel me to pick up another system (and a receiver; my current one is maxed out, so a new system would require venturing into the miasma of my entertainment center's wires - a HIGH barrier to entry).

The Halo 3 thing annoys me, though - you could play THE ORIGINAL DOOM co-op over a network connection, if you wanted to solder together the necessary serial cables. The only thing Halo offers me that I am interested in is the chance to play out the interesting story, with the friend I beat the first game with. I've got a better shooter in Half Life 2 (and derivatives) than the Xbox360 will ever deliver.

Posted By Janthkin on 07/18/2007 5:09 PM


Microsoft: glad they fessed up to the hardware issues (finally). Learned today that Halo 3 will NOT have co-op play over Live, which was a required feature for me; so, I won't be buying one of those anytime soon, either.

The Halo 3 thing annoys me, though - you could play THE ORIGINAL DOOM co-op over a network connection, if you wanted to solder together the necessary serial cables. The only thing Halo offers me that I am interested in is the chance to play out the interesting story, with the friend I beat the first game with. I've got a better shooter in Half Life 2 (and derivatives) than the Xbox360 will ever deliver.

Whaaaaa?

I follow Halo3 news pretty closely and I haven't heard this yet. Can you post a link?

. . .I'll get right on some internet searches in the meantime.

 

Edit: Gah. I found it. What a bummer, although I do think it is understandable. With a game like Gears of War or even Doom you have a very limited space between the players' avatars. With Halo there has always been times where characters can be very, very far apart on a level if they want and it makes sense that could make online co-op difficult.

Still, that is very disapointing.

 

Halo 1 & 2 just plain didn't let you get that far apart (auto-teleport). Just about everyone who really wants this feature would probably be fine with that.

More to the point, it allows co-op over LAN, so the problem seems to lie in either latency or bandwidth. Unless this game is fantastically different than over Live offerings, we're talking peer-to-peer communications. They must have spent almost zero time on optimization, if they require ethernet speeds to keep synchronized. (Example, as I just finished a game: Supreme Commander plays fine over a normal Comcast cable connection, with some 3000 units in play, tracking and synchronizing physics-based weaponry & explosions.)

*sigh* I'm a touch disgruntled atm, is all.

I'm glad someone else shares my PS2 fetish.

I mean, I bought my coworker's slim PS2 so I could play Disgaea.

It's pretty much all I've needed to keep me occupied this summer.

My phat PS2s are starting to make some interesting sounds on power-up; I fear for their continued health. Fortunately, the slim models are pretty cheap.

 

I'm not willing to personally rule out the possibility of online co-op for Halo 3 yet. I'll let this post on Halo.Bungie.Org say it a bit better than I probably could:

 

This Online Coop thing is making me crazy.
Wow. Before I get to actually posting news today, I would like to beg for a little more rationality in the gaming press. I simply CANNOT BELIEVE how many articles are out there this morning that say "Bungie has cancelled online Coop!" (To be fair, there are a number of sites that present the news as a possibility - which it is, of course - and some sites, like Kotaku, who are even reasonable about it all - but for the most part, it's all gloom and doom this morning.) The facts: this information is coming from the September issue of EGM - an issue that isn't even printed yet. Someone at the printer grabbed unbound pages and snapped blurry photos of them - EGM is taking a HUGE hit for this, and I hope that when this issue hits the stands in early August, folks buy it, because they've been robbed. But that's really a side issue, I guess. The comments on online coop, made by Frankie to the EGM crew, were made a month ago - they were collecting info for this article during the week of June 19. It's POSSIBLE that that particular info is still accurate - but it's equally possible that it's not. (Magazine print deadlines make it hard to keep up on fast-changing info. This is the primary reason there are embargoes on press information; if they didn't exist, magazines could never compete with online sources, because the info would have been published weeks earlier. Bungie does a great job of making sure that what you read in magazines is, for the most part, news to you - but if the subject is a work in progress (like online coop), there's only so much prediction that can go on.) Bottom line: in mid-June, online coop was not working very well. Whether that's changed in the intervening month, we don't know - we won't know until either Bungie makes a public statement (possible, but I wouldn't hold my breath), or Halo 3 is released. What you can't say with any confidence is that "AS OF RIGHT NOW, ONLINE COOP IS OUT" - because that comment is a month out of date. (Louis Wu 13:22:24 UTC) (permalink)

I'm hopeful that, at the very leat, online co-op will be made available after launch via downloadable content.

 

 

Posted By Janthkin on 07/19/2007 8:50 AM

My phat PS2s are starting to make some interesting sounds on power-up; I fear for their continued health. Fortunately, the slim models are pretty cheap.

Wow.  I still have my PS2, that I stood outside of a Fred Meyer in Anchorage, Alaska in 20 degree weather for, and it is still going strong.  I learned, through the internet, how to open it up and dust it and clean the laser lens.  But, other than that, it sitll works.

People hoped the same thing about Halo 2.

My bottom line: this information is out there, however it got there. Bungie could conduct damage control if they wanted to; they've remained silent. So, I'll take it as accurate, and adjust my purchasing plans accordingly.

I didn't say they were dead; they just make some interesting sounds on initial disk spin-up. (And yeah, both are early-generation models, though both myself and my (now) wife waited a couple months before purchase.)

 

From Bungie:

We didn’t start the fire, but a series of reports that spread from an unfortunate leak of an upcoming issue of U.S. enthusiast magazine Electronic Gaming Monthly spiraled out of control and suddenly reports on the Internet included salacious headlines like “Halo 3 Co-Op Heads Offline” and heads needed to be dipped in ice water in order to prevail.

All we confirmed to EGM for their sweet, mind-twitterpating Campaign reveal (and other massive feature reveal) regarding Cooperative Play in Halo 3’s Campaign is that System Link co-op will be included in Halo 3. Just like we told EGM, we’re aware that people want co-op online but the challenge of getting our complicated A.I. systems, huge game world, and gargantuan encounters neatly packaged and transferring across the Interwebz is a mythic undertaking. Nonetheless, like other elements of Halo 3, online co-op is a feature we’re wrestling with somewhere  in a muddy and muggy Florida swamp against a ton-toothed Alligator, but, what we haven’t really talked about is how big the knife we brought to the wrasslin’ match is.

All that said, EGM doesn’t really know whether or not Halo 3 will ship with online co-op, only Bungie knows. The only thing they did know is that co-op was available for split-screen and System Link. As we approach the tail end of development, we will have a clearer picture of whether or not that online feature will be included. Assuming either way would be foolish at this time. We will say more when we feel it’s prudent. Because that’s how we roll.

 

 

So there is still a very real chance, and I remain hopefull.

 

'kay, you be the optimist, and I'll be the pessimist. We'll see which of us proves to be the realist.

 

Mmmmmmm. Humble pie.

Not just co-op over Xbox Live, 4-player co-op over Xbox live.

www.bungie.net/News/content.aspx

 

Boo-yah!

 

 

Yak, did you see the walk through that Hideo Kojima did at the 20th anniversary of MGS?  It is over 15 min. demo and, to me anyway, it looks like what we saw in the trailers.  Here is the link to the video.  It is 15 min. long, so you were warned.

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/22702.html

Please, tell me I'm wrong.  Like what I said, it looks on spot to me.

Posted By brotherskeeper74 on 07/31/2007 10:21 PM
Yak, did you see the walk through that Hideo Kojima did at the 20th anniversary of MGS?  It is over 15 min. demo and, to me anyway, it looks like what we saw in the trailers.  Here is the link to the video.  It is 15 min. long, so you were warned.

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/22702.html

Please, tell me I'm wrong.  Like what I said, it looks on spot to me.

No you're not wrong. That demo is clearly gameplay. If you go back and read my last post on the subject I said that I knew the game was going to rock (all MGS games tend to) and I knew the cinematics were done with the in-game engine.

My only point was (and is) that you don't get to play cinematics so showing an exciting action scene as a trailer for a game always pisses me off as you don't actually get a sense of how the game is *played*.

Compare the E3 demo vs. this recent video. Both look amazing but the recent video is almost all gameplay. Personally, I buy a game for how well it plays not how exciting the cinematics are so I always would rather see even just video clips of gameplay rather than a cinematic, but maybe that's just me.

 

Now that I've finished "defending" myself  the game itself looks pretty incredible as we all knew it would and the gameplay looks to be genre defining as well. It certainly makes me hope the rumors are true and we'll see it on the 360 sometime next year as I really don't want to buy a PS3.

If anything looks to bother me about what I see is that with the game's graphics becoming increasingly realistic some of the classic gameplay quirks are suddenly seeming very false and out of place.

Snake is able to carry and conjur up a metal barrel out of nowhere? At least with the cardboard box you could suspend disbelief and pretend he folded it up and stuffed it somewhere, but a metal barrel? And the ability for snake to carry and equip seemingly dozens of weapons and equipment all at the same time?

I don't think I like it anymore. I think I'd prefer the Halo approach of limiting how much stuff you can carry, it would make for more interesting tactical decisions IMO and would increase the realism factor quite a bit.

But still, overall it is very impressive. Thanks for the link.

 

Who needs to be humble? I never said it wasn't going to happen; I was just going to act as if it wasn't going to happen.

I enjoy my pessimistic view on most things; either I'm right, or I'm pleasantly surprised. It's worked for our Stealer armies, and now for Halo 3. I need to find something else to be pessimistic about now....

Posted By yakface on 08/01/2007 2:51 AM

Snake is able to carry and conjur up a metal barrel out of nowhere? At least with the cardboard box you could suspend disbelief and pretend he folded it up and stuffed it somewhere, but a metal barrel? And the ability for snake to carry and equip seemingly dozens of weapons and equipment all at the same time?

If I remember correctly, it is like the Immortals (from the Highlander series) and when they pull their swords out of....

Well, you know what I'm talking about.